Why The Hangover Is So Good

July 23, 2009

Actually two things: a compelling story engine and thematic elements that, for the most part, go unchecked in most modern American films. Both concepts can take responsibility, along with the humor, for propelling audiences back into the theaters for repeat showings.

Of course, the most interesting part of The Hangover is the fact that we never actually see what happened that night. Being a tremendous fan of story, my adrenaline kicked in when all we saw of the bachelor party was the time-compressed footage of the sun setting. The filmmakers weren’t going to take the obvious route! As it turns out, the path they did take was much more complicated than I had originally thought. In this first article, I explore the thought process I went through in analyzing the story engine behind this film.

The Story Goal

If stories are about solving problems, then the Story Goal is the focal point of the efforts undertaken to resolve those problems. In The Hangover problems don’t really start to occur until the morning after. The characters (bachelor party-ers?) wake up to find themselves surrounded by evidence of a night of debauchery and all around masculine excess. Coming to their senses, they soon come to realize that their best friend, Doug Billings (Justin Bartha as the Groom), has gone missing. With only one day until the wedding, they have precious little time to find him. Only problem is…no one can remember exactly what happened.

So that must be the Goal, right? The characters need to remember what happened?

At first I thought that was the answer. With that missing footage (that we really don’t get to see until the end credits), the story is set up as a memory story. Like Memento or The Sixth Sense these kinds of stories deal with thematic issues of faulty memory. The characters (usually led by the Protagonist) spend the entire story recalling or finding clues towards recalling exactly what happened. Often they deal with thematic issues of reality and perception and the pursuit of the truth.

Dental bills are the least of Stu's problems.

But while the characters in the Overall Story were dealing with those problems of memory, the Main Character himself wasn’t. Stu Price (Ed Helms) had his personal issues stemming from the relationship with his fiance; more specifically, what he was allowed and not allowed to do on the trip (as dictated by her). Thematically, those issues of permission and what one should do and shouldn’t do don’t really gel with issues of truth and reality. Congruency is everything in a well-constructed story and I had a sense that this film was built on a solid foundation. So remembering couldn’t be the goal.

Thinking about it some more, I began to realize what was really going on. When you come right down to it, what would remembering have solved? So they remember how Stu lost his tooth or why Phil (Bradley Cooper) had a hospital bracelet wrapped around his wrist. Would that have really brought the story’s central problem to a close? Wouldn’t there still be a furious bride left waiting in Los Angeles?

That is when it occurred to me that remembering what happened was only a step towards the Story Goal, not the goal itself.

Story Requirements

Just like stories can’t exist without acts, acts can’t exist without sequences, and sequences can’t exist without scenes, Story Goals cannot exist with Requirements. If you just had the goal with no progression towards it, you wouldn’t have a story; you’d have a binary switch. If the Story Goal is the focal point for the character’s drives, then the Story Requirements are the steps taken to reach that goal.

The groomsmen attempt to retrace their steps.

In The Hangover, the Story Goal is to resolve the problem of a wedding without a groom. Place the groom on the altar and all will be forgiven. To reach that goal the characters need to uncover what happened the night before. They’re basically recreating their steps starting with the wedding chapel, traveling through the hospital ward, and ending up on the roof of their hotel where they do in fact, find the groom. But finding the groom does not solve the story’s problem. They still have to race back home (purchasing tuxedos along the way) and get the groom back in his rightful place at his bride’s side. Only then can the story be considered over.

But this still doesn’t call into effect their struggles with remembering.

Notice the subtle difference between the characters uncovering what happened and their struggles to remember that night. They feel almost the same but in actuality they are two completely different contexts; one is looking at a problem externally (what happened), the other internally (remembering). The characters spend a lot of time doing both. Which one, then, can be considered the requirements of the story and how does the other one fit in?

Even More Detail

It turns out that just like acts can break into sequences can break into scenes, goals can break into requirements that then can be broken down into Prerequisites. Yep, there is even a finer level of granularity to story structure! A Story’s Prerequisites are the essential items needed in order to reach the Requirements. They don’t bring the Goal any closer (like the Requirements), they just describe what must be in place before the efforts towards reaching the goal can start (More on this concept can be found here).

In The Hangover, the Requirements revolve around the discovery of what happened to their beloved groom. Uncovering the events that happened are the steps needed to get Doug back to his beloved. But before they can even begin to uncover all those things, they first have to reconcile their own memories; they have to start remembering. And that’s where we find them at the beginning of the film, trying to resolve what they see in front of them with what they remember in their own minds.

A revolution in car seats for babies.

What About the Funny?

Granted, that’s a lot of conceptual theory to deal with, especially when you’re using to evaluate an R-rated comedy full of penis jokes and rowdy behavior. I fully appreciate that the major key to the success of The Hangover lies in the jokes and the performances (particularly on the part of Zach Galifanakis). But it is precisely this level of detail in the story engine that creates the need for an audience to see it again; the story offers more than simple gags. Most comedies struggle to have a Goal, let alone Requirements or God-forbid, Prerequisites! The Hangover, lucky for us, has them all.

Next I’ll be discussing the rarely-used thematic elements in this film.